


Coast

by Maseba



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Ancient History, Attempted Murder, Gen, Historical References, No Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27482239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maseba/pseuds/Maseba
Summary: It's a test I did for a creative writing club. I think I will use this story for a future character.  But I want to see if in English it is very difficult to follow this type of prose. Please, comment what you think of it
Comments: 5
Kudos: 1





	Coast

From under the water she could watch the ships advance, and watch the swords they threw overboard sink. They were covered it with hot oil and they lit them before the arms touched the sea, and sometimes the water put them out from the beginning, and others they kept burning a little more, until they were almost at their side, and Miren saw them up close, the smoke-filled bubbles they formed rose to the surface.

She had been up all night, and in the morning she had approached the beach, because she wanted to know what the ritual party that the important ones was like, because that dead man was a leader among his men, and the men gave the highest honors those they respected, very different from the poor burials of their acquaintances.

That old foering man who led the journey, had seen her watch them prepare everything, and had told her that warriors sank more slowly than their beloved weapons, the blankets that wrapped their bodies were embroidered with laments and stories of their exploits, and they had been embroidered it since they went to war, to have them ready-made, and got wet with the passing of the waves, which made them heavier and pushed them to the bottom, dragging them. But for him they could only launch their mistresses, because the moon makes the sea move at night and they were not going to find him.

Her insides clenched and she wanted to throw up every time she thought of him. Once the ceremony is over, and his soul is chained to the realm of the dead, his ghost will no longer be able to tell anyone that she had killed him.

Her reason was very clear in her mind, it had not been "for pride", as her parents told her that night, when they returned from the beach. But they had wanted to lower their heads and make them happy, because they were going to some lands on the other side of the sea, to risk their lives, to defend them, and they needed to be given provisions, even if they had to make an effort ... And no one in the town dared to tell them that they needed the animals and vegetables more than the glories that were made in their name.

She saw their gazes, sometimes they seemed to have the eyes of a dead person, other times they were very lively, but dark, so much so that they scared her, and she knew they would not have them in mind when they were going to raze the port they were going to...

She had seen the boats arrive from her family's house, and she had gone to call in town. Her family and her lived in the dunes of the beach, far from the town, and they lacked many things, and the lord gave them oil and onions every time they told about a ship, so the villagers could go to where that ship was, to try to trade with them, because most of the ships did not stop in those lands, because they did not have even port.

The fishermen left their boats on the sand on the beach, and on stormy days, they would go looking for them with carts to drive them to the village, so that the sea would not take them away, and when a great boat came, they would take their little boats and go to look for it, wearing nacred fabrics and necklaces to exchange. Sometimes they bought the fish from them and they laughed that even having boats in the sea, they wouldn't catch fishes themselves...

But those boats did stop, they left them on the coast, where they had been able to get off and walk to land.

He had spoken with the lord of the lands, and later he went to the main street of the town, and had ordered that each family be taken away from a number of fruits, vegetables, salted pig's feet and a live goat, because the pigs and cows where more . She had told him that in her house there was only one little goat, White, who actually acted as a dog for them, and Gods will take care of their souls if they took her away, they'd better take more than one from the lord, who had so many that they didn't could eat all of them in their field, and he would walk them through other people's fields, and that's why they had to walk their goat on the beach.

But white had been taken from her, two men had come to her house and they had not dared not give her to him. Miren asked them to give her family enough money to buy another for the lord, but they laughed at her... And she put herself into the camp at night, because those who were to watch were not watching, they had fallen asleep, and she had taken from the chief what she calculated were enough coins for two other goats. One of more, because she was angry.

The lord told her that they had been looking for her, to kill her, but that he had told them that she should not be, and that they should look better if they had not missed the money or if they had been discounted, either without intention or by deceiving him, and she was nervous because even if no one had accused her and the captain seemed to accept that one of his men had more long hands that he must, but she was afraid because they would know it was her if they saw the two goats that she had already bought from the lord. She kept them inside the house, hidden, and during the day she would pick them up some weeds that he kept in her shoes, and she would walk them on the beach at night so that they would feed sucking the salt from the rocks and eat the running plants, and run, without anyone seeing.

But that night he had gone there too, to see the stars and calculate the day they would leave their village, and he had seen her walking two goats, and he thought the same thing that the lord had thought, and he began to chase her, and the goats chased them.

Miren started swimming at the beach, even when the waves were almost as high as she was, because the sand sank her feet and wouldn't let her run, and she was going faster in the water than outside. He was a man of the interior, he was always on land or in the wood of the ship, and he did not swim as well as she and did not know the sea, because the old man who accompanied them was the one who guided them. He moved forward, but he kicked and handcuffed, looking like a child. He screamed, and Miren thought he could be heard all over the dune.

She did not do it because she hated him, or because he slapped her when she threatened him in town, or because he had taken White from her. She killed him because she wanted to live, she wanted to live as much than he would have killed her.

As she left him behind, she thought that it didn't matter that he didn't catch her right now, because even if he couldn't catch her, his men would catch her. She stopped going so fast, to let him think she could catch up, and looked where the foam from the waves ended. Because he knew about the tides of the deep sea from the old man, but those of the coast escaped him.

Sea is life and death. Miren was swimming inward so that he too could swim and not realize that it was the sea that was putting him in. He followed her because men always think they know more than they do, and the townspeople say that the size of the waves dazzles them, but the undertow is more dangerous no one can see it, and there are people who don't know how to get out, because they want to swim out, but they have to swim sideways to get out of the stream.

  
And the sea swallows them.


End file.
